Should God be tried, in absentia.

When I listen to atheists preach the bible, which is very common these days, they use the same biblical stories as theists, but the meaning taken from these stories is very different for the atheist.

Eg: The Noah's ark story. From a Christian perspective, God saved the good people, taught the bad people a lesson they'll never forget, or remember because they are all dead, and showed everybody how powerful he is. From an atheist perspective, God committed genocide: 'Adimpleo genocide in terra' and thus, through his actions, shows the type of god he really is. Same story, very different meaning to different people.

Another example of biblical genocide is the Israelites invasion of Canaan. And there are probably other examples in the bible that may contravene other UN resolutions.

From this, I wonder if God should be tried, in absentia, for crimes against humanity, in accordance to UN resolution 96.

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Personally, I think we do this all the time. Every time we point out god's cruelty, his penchant for violence, the illogic of his "law," or the despicable nature of his scapegoat / savior, the deity of the Abrahamic religions is at the bar. I doubt there is an atheist on A|N who doesn't know that Yahweh has a lot to answer for, from expecting Adam & Eve to understand that there was something wrong with the Tree of Knowledge and Abraham's even considering god's command to slaughter his son, Isaac to god's supposed son saying that you have to hate your mother-father-sister-brother in order to follow him and the ridiculous farce of sacrificing god in one form to god in another form in order to solve a problem which god created in the first place.

And actually, god already has been put on trial, at least allegedly. The action was held at Auschwitz sometime during World War II, by a number of Jews being held prisoner there. Granted, their discussion was limited to actions regarding Adonai in the old testament, but as you can see in the closing argument, offered by one of the inmates, the evidence against this supposedly omnibenevolent deity is overwhelming.

From a Christian perspective, God saved the good people, taught the bad people a lesson they'll never forget, or remember because they are all dead, and showed everybody how powerful he is.

That's a pretty simple argument to counter, lol. It's hard to teach or show someone anything when your actions cause them to no longer be able to think, or breathe. Christians struggle with the story of Noah probably more than anything written in the bible, because it is so insanely nonsensical - regardless of whether it is taken metaphorically or literally. I'm sure most of them simply would rather that that particular story had never been written. Deep inside, they know that defending such actions runs contrary to any logical human emotion, and doing so defines them as utterly irrational at some level.

Should god be tried in abstentia? No, because it doesn't exist. I would no more try god in absentia than I would the trolls that live under the bridge and eat the billy goats gruff. Or, leprechauns, the tooth fairy, satan, Dracula, the Orisha spirits, etc., etc., etc. Besides, if you win, who you going to collect judgment from, or get justice out of?

Placing a religion, and its leaders, on trial, however, is another thing. When the allies placed Goering, Hess, Kaltenbrunner, Ribbentrop, Streicher, et al. on trial in Nuremberg, not only were the individuals on trial, but all of Nazi ideology. Same thing when Israel placed Eichmann in the dock. Ratzinger, and the clerics responsible for the cover up of child rape would be a good place to start, followed by the ayatollahs of Iran and imams of Saudi Arabia, the American evangelicals who support gay murders in Africa, and a myriad host of others.

I wonder what the first step would have to be in order to start such a process against the all those involved in the Catholic church. It shouldn't be to difficult, there is already lots of evidence and precedence, by way of convictions, against a few priests.

The problem would be to prove they knew about paedophilia in the church and that they tried to cover it up.